Truth is out there

'It was definitely a conversation starter,'' recalls John ''Cooka'' Campbell about his post-high school days when a spaceship took pride of place in the backyard of his Canberra share house.

''The white flying saucer was there when I moved into 14 Currie Crescent, Kingston, in the early 1970s and still there when I left some six years or so later,'' the long-time Canberra resident explains.

''You'd go to parties and people would ask where you lived, and you'd reply 'oh in the house with a white UFO in the backyard', and everyone would want to come and see it,'' Cooka chuckles.

Regular readers of this column will identify the UFO as a futuro - a prefabricated Finnish-designed building of the late 1960s-early 1970s. The polyester plastic and fibreglass domed structures were initially intended for use as ski lodges in remote locations but due to their quirky appearance ended up being transformed for all sorts of uses, from cafes to brothels. ''Just before I moved in it was used as a real estate office to help sell new developments in the area,'' recalls Cooka, who during his six years at Currie Crescent, embraced the striking structure for anything but business. ''It was party central - we had many an all-nighter in the spaceship blaring some Jimi Hendrix and the Doors on our stereo while putting away a few cases of long necks."

''Those times back in the '70s were wild, it was party after party - it was the era of living free and easy.''

Although the futuro didn't belong to them, Cooka and his housemates became quite protective of their out-of-this-world backyard feature. ''One day I came home from work at lunch to find the hatch lowered and a bunch of boys from St Eddies (Edmund's) drinking and smoking inside,'' says Cooka, who promptly told the truant students that if it wasn't clean in an hour, he'd be ''letting their teachers know''. ''They left it absolutely spotless,'' Cooka smirks, adding, ''it was probably the best clean it ever had while it was in our yard.''

Cooka and fellow housemate Walter Shafron believe ''their'' flying saucer is the very same futuro that ended up at the Dickson Planetarium and ultimately on the University of Canberra campus near Zierholz Brewery, where this column recently reported (Beam Me Up, UC, September 8) that a number of researchers are trying to determine its pedigree. ''Given its history in Currie Crescent, I guess it's quite apt that it's ended up 'landing' outside a pub,'' Cooka muses.

Leo Vredenbregt, formerly of Perth and now of Ngunnawal, recalls in the 1970s a similarly glossy white futuro located beside the Leach Highway in the Perth suburb of Willetton.

''It disappeared, but I just discovered that it's been rotting in a backyard somewhere in the hills of Perth for the last 20 years or so,'' Vredenbregt laments.

''Apparently its now for sale for about $10,000.''

During the week, this column's bushwalking correspondent, Pastor John Evans, did his best job at impersonating Mr Claus while attempting to scale 16 of Kosciuszko National Park's highest peaks in just two days. Unfortunately bad weather kept the red suit-clad Evans from accomplishing his feat.

''We got blown, rained and whited-out off the Main Range - got 10, but missed Kosciuszko and the Rams Head Range,'' reports a disappointed Evans, who adds, ''the Santa pants ended down around me knees while pounding back the Summit Road to Charlotte Pass.''

Oh dear, I can imagine Mrs Claus blushing at such a sight and more importantly, let's hope the real Santa doesn't baulk at delivering the goodies if a bit of bad weather sets in this Monday evening.

Even more common than sightings of the jolly old fella from the North Pole at this time of year are cicadas whose voluminous song this season seems to be more vociferous than in recent years. In fact, Sharyn Payne of Kambah reckons the loudest cicadas hang out in the old trees of Curtin. ''We [my husband and I] were born and bred in Canberra and in our travels, we have not heard such loud cicadas as the ones in Curtin,'' Sharyn claims.

During the week, I headed out to Cotter Avenue to check-out the latest summer craze. Just near the new pedestrian bridge across the Cotter River adjacent to the playground in Cotter Avenue is an old weir.

For the ultimate heat-wave cool-off, if you lie on your back in the water just upstream of here, the river will slowly carry you downstream before increasing pace and eventually jettisoning you over the weir and then under the footbridge (duck, or you'll hit your head)! Soon after the footbridge, the river flow decreases and it's easy to get out.

During the week, I tracked down one of the few remaining wooden muzzles in the area - belonging to Phyl McKey of Garran.

McKey who fetched the wooden muzzle from a dusty box of family farm memorabilia under her home says, ''My dad first used it on the Monaro in the 1920s but it had been passed onto him, so my best guess is that it dates back to the 1880s.''

So how does the contraption work? ''It was attached to the calf's nose and its simple design allowed the calf to graze, but when it put its head up to try and suckle from its mother the wooden flap would block the calf's mouth, thereby preventing it from drinking milk,'' McKey explains.